Notes from the Field
I am not a musician - part two
by , May-03-2015 at 1:19pm (5186 Views)
Three or so years ago I wrote a blog about not being a musician. At the time I of course thought that I had exhausted my musings. For reference.
Well here I am with more musings.
I am not a natural musician. Not at all. I am living proof that the Average Joe, someone of average ability, through a whole lot of constant enthusiastic practice and above average stubbornness, can get to a level that could only be considered an accomplishment if I were eight or ten years old. But I can play at that level.
Well, but have you heard some of these eight and ten year olds? Well. If I had started twenty or so years before I was born, I could have done that when I was ten. I was, at ten, still at least seven or eight years from starting on the mandolin.
So I can play entertainingly enough, but I suffer from two other handicaps, (or features) that I suspect are not something that stubborn practice can deliver. I lack musical creativity and I lack showmanship.
Maybe because of how I grew up or how I am wired, I much prefer to be told what to play than to come up with something on my own. I let the sheet music or my memory tell me the tune, and I let the learned expectations of the tradition tell me how to decorate, ornament, and improvise. On breaks I stick to the melody, or take excursions through pathways I have learned work well.
I am not one for improvising cool licks. I can’t “come up with something interesting.” I know cool and interesting when I hear it, and I can in some cases emulate it, but I can’t come up with it. I have taken a few workshops and here and there picked up a few hints and tricks that work more often than they don’t and I can fool a beginner. I have a few “do this” and “do that” books and they help.
While through “dint of hard work over long eons” I have developed the technical ability to play what is in my head, I have discovered, to my dismay, that there just isn’t anything interesting in there. I don’t have musical ideas that aren’t obviously derivative.
In one workshop I was told I have it entirely wrong. That what I am trying to do is impossible, akin to trying to tickle myself, surprise myself. An impossible task. That my experience of playing something I have come up with will never, by definition, surprise and delight me to the extent someone else’s creations will. I will never find my own composition interesting in the same way I find other peoples compositions interesting.
This workshop advocated coming up with things that are different. Just go for different. In particular, exercises to break away from learned patterns – head for the same old thing and miss, start in the wrong place and scramble my way back, come in late and work it out. The point was that my job is to make something that surprises and is interesting to someone else. It doesn’t matter what I think. I don’t have to be delighted. They do.
Which brings me to my second deficiency, showmanship. I can’t seem to care if other people are entertained or delighted. I feel used and abused catering to the uninformed tastes of the audience. And I don’t have the energy or skills to make them appreciate my tastes.
I have gotten to the point where I can get on a stage, I can play for others, but only by hiding behind the music. “Here is a tune for you. Don’t listen to me, listen to the tune.” Which works in a limited way, but if the tune isn’t one they want to hear, I have no backup, no way to gauge which way to go. How to read the audience and figure out what is needed.
And, let’s face it, I don’t care. Or care enough, I guess. I what to play what I want to play. I think there is magic in the way a performer can hold an audience. And convert them from wanting what they want to wanting what is offered. And I do not have a clue how to do that. I don’t think that is even something teachable or that I can get through practice. Again, there are no exercises or flash cards for getting an audience on your side, getting them to trust you enough to lead them on your musical journey.
My main point here is that I do not gain anything overall just by “getting better”. I am better enough. Working on it more will only help my technique. Look, I understand there is plenty of room for improvement. There always is. But improved playing won’t get me musical creativity and showmanship, any more than improving typing and keyboard skills gets you closer to writing a great story.
Not that being a musical success is a goal. It really isn’t, and I have talked about the myriad of reasons it isn’t in other blogs. (I know, so quit yer bitchin, you are where you want to be.) It’s just that I have known and can identify more than a few solid performers whose technical raw ability is not gigantic. It’s good, even real good, but they are where they are for reasons other than being able to deliver well on a technical level. No, what they can deliver is surprise and delight. They can deliver entertainment.
And I can't find the path from here to there.
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